Atkins Flu

One of the things that sometimes happens when I go to a severely carb-restricted diet is I get "Atkins flu".  This happens in the first week or so -- head ache, muscle cramps, nausea.  I remember one particularly problematic night in a hotel room in Salt Lake City, very miserable, without remedies available in the middle of the night.   Last night also wasn't so great, at least in the early morning.

Some variations of low carb diets say this is just a natural result of de-toxing.  "The worse you feel, the better it is, because it's all the bad things leaving your body."  This is horseshit.  Something that feels that bad is bound to be bad for you.  This is how we know there is something wrong that needs to be addressed.

I like grainy salt for roasted vegetables, so this has been a staple on my counter for a while.

I actually can't detect differences in taste between different salts, 

but the texture is important to how the dish turns out.

The Atkins folks make it very clear - during the first couple of weeks on their diet, there will be a lot of water loss.  The water is stored throughout your body.  The whoosh of losing water flushes out salt that is also in solution throughout your cells, almost as if you were losing it through sweat.  You have to drink a lot of water, and you have to replace the salt loss.

So when I decided I couldn't toss and turn any more, I got up and consumed very quickly: 2 extra-strength Tylenol, 10 ounces of water, a half cup of coffee, and not quite an eighth of a teaspoon of salt, put in the palm of my hand and licked off.

Now, an hour and a half later, I feel fine.  But the Atkins folks note it is much harder to cure this feeling than to prevent it.  They recommend adding an extra half-teaspoon of salt, or two tablespoons of soy sauce, or a couple of cups of regular-sodium broth, every day above how you would normally cook, for the first several weeks.  I love salt.  I may have learned to like roasted vegetables because they can be covered in grainy salt like french fries.  So I just have to remember to add salt to everything, and don't feel abashed or ashamed of doing it.